


Used To

by orphan_account



Category: due South
Genre: American Frottage Day, Dubious Consent, Frottage, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-07
Updated: 2014-01-07
Packaged: 2018-01-07 22:02:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1124890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pre-canon, post-divorce Ray Kowalski decides to pick a fight, and gets more than he bargained for. </p><p>A series of first encounters (the two imagined times before "Asylum") between RayK and Volpe.</p><p>For Seascribe's "American Frottage Day" challenge!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Used To

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Seascribe for the turbo-beta, and for pointing out weird inconsistencies in tense and voice. Anything that still doesn't make sense is entirely my own fault, and I should know better, because I teach English 101.

Being divorced, Ray thought, sucked for several different reasons. Not that he hadn’t seen it coming; it’d been clear for months, if not years, that he and Stella had just grown apart. It happens, he supposed, when you meet someone when you’re that young; you grow up and become totally different people. Sometimes those totally different people are still, by some weird miracle, compatible. For Ray and Stella? No such luck. So Ray found himself newly single, which hadn’t been the case in over half his life, and he didn’t know what to do with himself, didn’t even really know how he felt. Not sad, really, not upset, just vaguely pissed at the uncaring, unfair world.

Maybe, he thought, what he needed was a fight. Sure as hell wasn’t getting laid tonight (hell, maybe not even this month), and he had to let off this steam somehow. Boxing, yeah, he could get back to the gym, get back in the ring, but everyone there would just ask him about Stella, or worse yet, not even mention her name. Like they knew it was a touchy subject, like they were convinced Ray was on the verge of breakdown, so they’d just ask “hey man, how you doing?” or “how you holdin’ up?” as if actually mentioning the words “divorce” or “Stella” would trip Ray’s hair-trigger and he’d either fall apart or go ballistic. So he wasn’t going to go to the gym, not tonight.

It’d been a shit day at work. It’s always a shit day at work, when you’re working homicide. Sometimes you just want to punch something, break something, burn the whole thing down. Sometimes you just wish someone would knock your lights out, so you couldn’t remember your day. So, looking for a nice, old-fashioned punchup where nobody’d call the cops, Ray made his way to a notorious biker bar a few blocks from the station. Have some beers, shoot some pool, win some pool, maybe start a fight over pool – this was the perfect plan. Piss off some big dude who’d be game for a brawl, yeah, that’ll do, he thought.

That’s how Ray Kowalski, recently-divorced scrawny-ass homicide detective, ended up the only guy at The Surly Bandit not wearing anything made of leather.

Not that he was _too_ conspicuously out of place, in his jeans and ass-kicking boots and Chicago Bulls t-shirt, but he sure as hell wasn’t one of these guys. These guys were all big, for one. Fucking huge, even. Ray might have wanted to black out and forget his troubles, but a punch from one of these guys might mean a broken jaw, not just the strategic destruction of a few brain cells. So Ray set himself down at the bar, next to someone more his size (okay, still twice his size), a sad-looking bald guy in a soft leather jacket, staring at his beer and occasionally checking his pager.

“Hey,” Ray asked him, “You come here often?”

_Damn, that sounded like a pick up line. God I wasn’t trying to make it sound like a pick up line._

The bald guy turned his head slowly to look at Ray, then looked away, exhaling sharply out his nose, as if in disgust.

_Fuckin’ great. He thinks it was a pickup line. Or he hates me. Maybe that’s good._

“Sorry to interrupt, I’m just… I’m new around here.”

_God, that was the stupidest explanation ever, Kowalski. Get your shit together. Maybe I should drink more._

So Ray ordered some cheap-assed canned beer and a shot of whiskey, and downed both as fast as he could, staring determinedly at the wall behind the bar.

“You ride?” the man finally asked.

“Nah. Well, used to. I’m more a muscle cars guy.” Ray responded.

“You got one?”

“Used to. GTO. My pops took it out to Arizona when he retired.”

“You _used to_ an awful lot,” was the condescending reply.

“Yeah, my life sucks. Tell me about it.”

Ray’s brutally honest self-assessment got a chuckle out of the big guy. “What’s your name, loser?”

“Ray.”

“Ray, I’m Volpe.” And as he extended his hand to shake, he looked Ray up and down. Maybe he was sizing him up for a fight, but the handshake didn’t seem to be an “I’ll kick your ass” kind of gesture.

“That really your name, wolf-boy?” Ray was still pushing for a fight.

“It’s name enough for you, asshole.”

There was a moment of awkward silence that offered Ray enough time to escape, to back out of this, to make the decision not to start something. That was not the kind of decision Ray was going to make.

“So,” Ray asked, “ _You_ ride?”

“Sometimes. Mostly I’m a collector. Some guys ride ‘cause they need to feel something powerful between their legs. Me? I don’t have that problem.” He shifted on his bar stool as he said this, turning to face Ray, while also spreading his knees a little wider, rolling his hips oh so vaguely, as if to make a statement.

“Heh,” replied Ray, a little uncertain how to interpret this gesture.

“Yeah, I’m a collector. I like my bikes to be a fun ride, but I don’t want to make a fucking _daily_ _commute_ out of it, you know what I mean? If they’re nice to look at, I keep ‘em around in my garage. But I’m always looking for new potential acquisitions.” Volpe extended that last word, drawing it out dramatically while staring Ray down, either to make it sound dirty or to show off that he knew a big word. Ray couldn’t tell which one it was. Maybe, Ray wondered, it was both.

“So you, uh, you got a sweet ride right now?” Ray asked, returning the same ambiguous eye contact.

“Not with me here.”

“Oh,” Ray responded, only to be immediately interrupted--

“I’d have offered to take you for a spin, remind you of how a good ride feels, _mister used-to._ ” Volpe countered. His tone of voice was maybe mocking, maybe propositioning. Ray really couldn’t tell.

_Aw, fuck it. I came here to get in a fight, let’s get in a fucking fight._

With a devil-may-care spark in his eye, Ray asked, “We talking about bikes here or something else?”

“What?” Volpe snarled, curling back his lip to show his teeth.

“’Cause it’s been a looong time since I’ve taken a joy ride.” Ray growled in his sultriest voice, as he inched closer to Volpe, daring him to snap. “Sometimes I miss straddling a big engine.”

“You fucking coming on to me?”

“What if I am?” Ray dared. “Am I a threat to your masculinity?” Ray almost spat out that last word.

“You’re a fucking threat to your own safety,” Volpe shot back, slamming his hands on the bar as he pushed himself up off of his stool, leaning into Ray’s space as he stood.

“I’m not scared of you!” Ray stood up as well, standing his ground.

“You want to take this outside?”

Before Ray could even finish saying, “Fuck yeah let’s take this outside,” Volpe had a fistful of his shirt, at the back just between his shoulder blades, and was shoving him toward a back door propped partway open with an ashtray. Ray twisted to shake free, and finally got loose as they emerged into the musty back alley. He pivoted on his heels, and got his hands up, ready to block a punch, or maybe throw one, but Volpe didn’t swing for his head, like Ray expected. He got one big hand on Ray’s crotch, and just pushed his palm hard against it.

“Fuck!” Ray exhaled, as he backed up into the brick wall, hitting his head on the corner of an electrical box. “What the…”

“You fuckin’ little tease,” Volpe snarled, as he stroked Ray’s cock through the fabric of his jeans, feeling him quickly and uncontrollably harden.

Ray gasped, and Volpe pushed harder, faster. Through gritted teeth, Volpe half-asked, half-demanded, “You into this?” All Ray could do in reply was squeak like some threatened rodent, but that seemed enough of an answer for Volpe, and immediately his other hand reached for Ray’s belt. In a few seconds, Ray’s jeans were open, and the waistband of his briefs was pushed down below his balls, and Volpe was jacking him, hard and fast, all the while pinning Ray to the wall, pushing his big shoulder into Ray’s chest, leaning his head down over Ray’s ear to hiss curses into it.

“That what you fucking wanted? Fuck you.”

Ray could barely catch his breath. “God… Fuck… Unghhhh…” he moaned. This was no fistfight, but Ray realized he was still heading for a kind of blackout that’d erase his shitty day.

“You think you can waltz in here and fucking start something? Here’s what you started… you come in here and run off your stupid mouth… fuck you…“ Volpe rumbled, and moved his head even closer to growl into Ray’s ear: “You’re going to get down on your scrawny knees and suck me off.”

And as if something completely snapped inside of Ray, as if someone reached down through his brain, into his guts, down to his dick, and just flipped a big, shiny switch, Ray was more turned on than he had been in months, maybe even years, and he lost it, coming in a sudden spurt that just missed Volpe’s thigh on its tragic arc toward the pavement below.

Volpe pulled his hands away and stepped back, wiped his hand off on the brick wall, and just stood there, waiting for Ray to run away, or maybe pull a knife, or do anything at all. When the blood finally returned to Ray’s brain, he shook his head as if trying to wake up, zipped up his pants, and turned to fix Volpe in his stare – not a stare of anger, but of wicked challenge.

“I’m not gonna suck you in this stupid alley.”

“What, you need a hotel room with a heart-shaped bed?”

“Fuck you, Volpe.”

“I didn’t tell you to fuck me. I said you’re going to suck me.”

“Maybe,” Ray countered, pushing forward into Volpe’s space, getting a knee between his knees, and firmly planting his hand on Volpe’s bulging crotch, “Maybe I’m not hungry.”

“You don’t take directions well, do you?”

At this, Ray pushed harder, began jacking Volpe through the fabric of his jeans. “Oh, we’ve only just met.”

With a suspicious chuckle, Volpe reached around and grabbed Ray’s ass with both hands, pressing him closer. Ray pushed back, not to get away, but to lock eyes with Volpe, watching for a reaction as he slowly unbuttoned his jeans, letting the side of his hand push the zipper open as his fingers reached in and down. Volpe didn’t blink when Ray’s fingers brushed down the length of his shaft, warm against the soft cotton of his boxers. But when Ray got Volpe’s balls into the cup of his hand and began to cradle them, to knead them with his long fingers, squeezing and pushing and feeling them tighten, feeling every texture and every twitch even through the fabric, Volpe closed his eyes softly, then exhaled hard. Opening his eyes again, Volpe’s shoulders softened as he thrust his hips up and in, pushing hard against Ray’s hand, pulling Ray’s hips toward him, feeling the angular bones pinned below the waistband of his jeans. Another thrust squeezed Ray’s hand between them almost painfully, and Ray felt the heat of Volpe’s cock and its twitching pulse against the sensitive inside of his wrist.

Ray squinted his eyes shut, hard, only to be pulled back to awareness by the vibrations of Volpe’s laughter against his chest.

“Heh, I _did_ offer to take you for a joy ride.”

Ray smiled. He was beginning to seriously enjoy this, fucked-up as it was. “You got a sweet bike?”

“ _You_ got a sweet ass.”

Maybe Ray was already halfway into that blackout he was seeking, because by the time his ears caught what his mouth was saying, it was already out there: “Fuck yeah.”

That’s how Ray Kowalski, recently-divorced scrawny-ass homicide detective ended up the only guy in the vacant apartment above The Surly Bandit not wearing anything at all.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Please continue to nag me for chapter 2 (the second time RayK encounters Volpe, which is the first time they meet as cop/informant.)
> 
>  _[edited to add]:_ ah! it was **china_shop** 's "Asylum (Redux)" (the ghost!Volpe fic i was trying to remember down in the comments) that planted the seed in my brain that Kowalski/Volpe is a hot hot hot pairing and that they really deserved some fucking while they're both alive. So, serious hat tip to china_shop for that brilliant inspiration.


End file.
